Crosses to Bear
by Nightwind
Summary: It's Swoop and a few other crazy Autobots vs. A Really Big Chunk of Rock, with Tracks's life hanging in the balance. Rating upped a bit due to Trailbreaker's gratuitous use of a certain expletive....
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note:**__  
Geez, I'm doing a lot of writing lately…_

_So, this is Swoop's "little" story...although due to the overall scenario of the story that grew in my brain for him, it developed a bit beyond being just about Swoop, as the other little Dinobot stories have been/will be. It's also not so "little" anymore. Swoop is still the main focus of the story, although I got to use some other characters, namely Hound and Trailbreaker, in major-ish roles that I've always wanted to use, too. Bonus! _

_But anyway, three Dinobots down, two to go… I actually have Snarl's little story close to done, too, and that one __**is**__ (comparatively) little, so it will probably be posted before this one gets finished posting._

_Ironically, however, this initial set-up chapter here contains no Swoop at all. HAH! Still, enjoy!_

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_"Just the bare bones of a name, all rock and ice and storm and abyss. It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars. It has the nakedness of the world before the first man - or of the cindered planet after the last."  
~Fosco __Maraini, contemplating K2's name_

_

* * *

_If he hadn't known better, Optimus Prime would have guessed that a human child had created the hologram of the mountain that was spinning slowly and serenely in front of him. It was a nearly-perfect pyramid, the kind of mountain that children drew all the time but that he'd thought didn't exist in the real world. He'd been wrong; the mountain of which the hologram was a representation loomed directly behind him, and it was indeed almost perfectly pyramidal. It stood silently, ancient glaciers and thick oceans of snow blanketing its steep, forbidding flanks. The summit was, at the moment, concealed by thick masses of angry, grey-white clouds that he knew were dumping meters of snow on the mountain's higher elevations. Hurricane-force winds were buffeting the mountain, to boot. Optimus shuddered inwardly at the thought.

He raised his gaze from the hologram of the mountain and slowly fixed it in turn on the small group of Autobots gathered around it.

"I need options, people," he announced quietly, his voice sounding absurdly calm to his own audios. It was the fruit of long experience, he supposed; leaders weren't allowed the luxury of showing apprehension, much less panic, in crisis situations. But panic was very present at the back of his mind, try as he might to ignore it. Turning his back to the cold, intimidating mountain hadn't eased his mind in the least.

After their leader's announcement, everyone's gaze slowly shifted toward and then came to rest upon a single Autobot in the small gathering, who in turn resisted the urge to squirm under the scrutiny.

"I'm really not sure there _are_ options, Prime," Hound answered calmly enough after a moment's thought, his tone belying his unease at being the sudden center of attention, not to mention his unease about the subject and the situation at hand. "Besides the obvious one."

"Which is?" Prime asked, curious. He didn't see anything obvious about the situation, after all.

"Climb it," Hound answered with a shrug that was far too casual and cavalier for the situation at hand, and he of all people knew it. "Climb it, find them, and bring them down."

"Climb it?" Slag echoed, incredulous; he knew that Hound's suggestion was far too cavalier as well. "In _February_?! In this weather?! You _crazy_!" he spat scathingly.

"Do you have a better option, Slag?" Hound shot back, scowling at the Dinobot. "Your brother is one of the ones up there, you know."

"I _know_ that," Slag growled fiercely, and then he subsided into brooding silence.

"I dunno, Hound," Trailbreaker put in doubtfully then. He was craning his head back to gaze toward the concealed summit that loomed 3,700 meters above their heads, frowning up at it. "Climbing in these conditions could take weeks, even for us."

"They don't _have_ weeks," Ratchet suddenly announced, pausing his work on a Seeker-damaged Air Raid, who was for once quietly submitting to Ratchet's ministrations and listening to the conversation at hand. "Or at least Tracks doesn't." Ratchet shifted uncomfortably when all eyes suddenly riveted themselves on him after his announcement. "The telemetry I received from his diagnostics before his signal cut out was...not good," he elaborated.

At that, Optimus leveled his gaze at his chief medic. "What are we looking at, Ratchet?" he asked. "How much time does Tracks have?"

Ratchet shook his head, returning his attention to Air Raid but talking while he worked.

"It's hard to say for certain," he reported quietly, though loudly enough to be heard over the constant wind that pounded the base camp, which was a mere fraction of the wind strength which was no doubt pounding his comrades up near the summit of the mountain. "Telemetry indicated damage to some of his vital systems _and_ that his self-repair systems were not functioning, so stasis won't be an option for him. And I'm not sure what effect the environmental conditions will have. The extreme temperatures up there and the lack of oxygen will be debilitating even for him, and depending on the extent and nature of the damage, those stresses could also shorten the time he has left."

Optimus and the others absorbed that quietly, no one making an attempt to interrupt or comment, so Ratchet continued, "On the other hand, if Swoop is functioning…Well, he's at least designed for dealing with extreme altitude for somewhat extended periods of time, and if he can find Tracks, then _maybe_ he can do something for him. That would buy Tracks some time, but…" He allowed his voice to trail off, stalling for time, but Optimus was giving him that impatiently expectant look. Ratchet sighed as he worked on carefully sealing leaks in the gash running the length of Air Raid's back and reluctantly summarized, "All in all, I'd say two days. Maybe three, but I highly doubt it."

Hound groaned quietly at that, in lieu of launching into a string of loud, virulent curses. Optimus returned his gaze to the scout.

"Hound?" he asked.

Hound sighed and answered, "I really hate saying that something's impossible, Prime, but…that's pretty impossible." He jerked his chin toward the hologram. "This is K2 we're talking about here. Second highest mountain in the world and arguably the hardest of them all to climb. 8,600-and-some meters tall. Near-vertical slopes. Temperatures at the summit on a nice day in winter could be 40 below, and on a not-nice day, as it is now…? You don't want to know. It's _never_ been successfully climbed in the winter. Which is why Slag over there is calling me crazy, and quite honestly he's right to do so. The thing's a monster, whatever way you look at it, and the situation up there just…isn't good."

The scout paused and made a circuit around the hologram of the mountain. With a thought, he added a blinking red dot to the display.

"According to the bit of telemetry that Ratchet received, this is – or was – Tracks's position," Hound continued, indicating the dot near the summit. "He's near the bottom of The Bottleneck. It's an open stretch of deep snow and thick ice that's about 400 meters from the summit and that's canted at about 85 degrees. It's treacherous even in optimal climbing conditions, which is _not_ what we have. Many, _many_ people have died on it. The area is highly prone to avalanche, and I fear Tracks's impact has already or will set some off. Not too far above him, there're seracs that—"

"Seracs?" Ratchet questioned, looking up from Air Raid's back.

"Building-sized blocks of ice," Hound explained. "Normally, they're more stable in the winter, so normally there'd be _less_ danger of them sliding now than there is during the regular climbing season, but…"

Ratchet held up a hand, not wanting to know more. "I get the picture," he said, going back to his repair work.

Nodding, Hound continued, "On the other hand, we have no idea where Swoop is. We've received no telemetry from him, and his locator beacon hasn't been activated, at least not so far as we've been able to detect. He hasn't made radio contact since he reported that he was following Tracks down, and Blaster's been unable to raise him. This could mean that his systems are damaged, that he's in an area where there's really heavy interference for some reason, or that…"

"He's dead," Slag said flatly, his hands balling into fists all unconsciously as he glared ferociously at the mountain.

"Let's not go assuming anything, Slag," Optimus Prime calmly cautioned. "We know that Swoop was attempting to follow Tracks down to render aid, and he's a capable flier, so it's entirely possible that he's perfectly fine and ended up near Tracks's crash site."

"There are no guarantees of that, though," Hound glumly pointed out. "Given that storm," he added, jerking his chin at the clouds concealing K2's summit, "wind speeds up there are probably approaching 120kph at the moment, so he could have been blown quite far off-course. And even if he's perfectly unharmed, he won't be able to fly down in that, not even by himself, much less toting Tracks along."

"And we can't send fliers up there, either," Optimus Prime agreed with an unhappy nod, glancing at Air Raid, who looked similarly unhappy and helpless. "Not until that storm clears."

"Which the weather report is saying isn't likely to happen any time soon," Trailbreaker put in and his voice, particularly for him, was morose. "Not before Tracks's deadline has passed, at any rate."

Hound nodded, his morose expression matching Trailbreaker's tone. "So," he said, "the way I see it, there are only two options: Either climb – and we'll need to start as soon as we possibly can – or sit here and wait to see if the storm clears or if either of them can make it down by themselves."

"I will _not_ sit here and wait," Slag immediately and belligerently informed them all. In fact, he made a determined move toward the mountain, as if he intended to get started on a climb right then and there, with no provisions. He was stopped only by a gesture and a warning glare from Optimus Prime.

Optimus Prime fixed a level gaze on Hound after forestalling Slag, then asked, "What's the risk?"

"The risk?" Hound asked blankly, taken aback.

"If I were to send you, Slag, Trailbreaker, and Ratchet up—"

"Me?!" Ratchet interrupted, alarmed. His body jerked involuntarily such that Air Raid, despite his unusually high pain threshold, felt compelled to squeak with discomfort. Ratchet either ignored the Aerialbot or didn't hear him, busily protesting, "I've never climbed a mountain, Prime. And from what Hound just said, that's _not_ the one to start with."

"You're needed up there, Ratchet," Prime answered levelly, holding Ratchet's gaze. "Even if Swoop is undamaged, manages to finds Tracks, _and_ can help him, he's not fully certified as a medic yet. You of all people know that. Even if he _was_ fully certified, he would likely need help, given what you said about Tracks's condition. You're the only medic here unless there's someone hiding in camp that I don't know about. And I'm sure these three," he added, gesturing at Hound, Slag, and Trailbreaker, "will take very good care of you."

Ratchet could argue with none of it, but that didn't mean that he liked it. Snow was not his favorite thing in the world. _Cold_ wasn't his favorite thing, either. And then there was that nagging touch of acrophobia that he had; just the trail to the base camp had had some scary bits that had rattled him more than he cared to admit. He sighed mournfully, stared in rising horror at the mountain that he was apparently going to climb whether he liked it or not, but he kept his mouth shut and returned his attention to Air Raid. In short order, Optimus returned his attention to Hound, continuing his question.

"If I were to send you, Slag, Trailbreaker, and Ratchet up that mountain, what's the chance that I'll end up with six dead Autobots instead of just two?"

Hound thought about the question for a moment, knowing that Optimus wasn't asking it lightly. He knew the Autobot leader's first and strongest impulse was to mount a rescue of the two stranded Autobots, danger be damned. But on the other hand, the possible risk to a rescue party was very real. Optimus needed to know how real the risk was before he made a decision as to which course of action to follow.

"It's hard to say, Prime," Hound eventually hedged. "One in four humans who tries to climb K2 dies, but we're a bit hardier than humans."

"But?" Optimus prompted when Hound's voice stopped there.

But Hound wasn't yet finished with the positive points and continued, "The three of us," he said, indicating himself, Trailbreaker, and Slag, "have climbed together often. We climbed Everest two years ago, and we'll make a good, experienced team. Further on the plus side, Tracks's last known location is practically right on one of the most-traveled climbing routes on the mountain. There are fixed ladders and ropes up there from previous expeditions. Not that we'll be able to use them, but it will make planning an attack easier if I can see what's been done before. And yes, we can make Ratchet as safe as he can possibly be, under the circumstances…"

"Those circumstances being?" Optimus Prime asked when Hound's voice trailed off.

Hound sighed.

"That's…the tricky part," he said. "There are always unseen, unpredictable variables when you're climbing a mountain like this one. It'd help if we could take a look up there," he added, jerking his chin toward the summit, "and see what we might be facing and whether or not the impacts up there set off anything…unfortunate. But unless that storm breaks, we're flying blind, and we're bound to run into some likely nasty surprises up there that I can't possibly foresee right now."

"Bottom line," Optimus Prime requested tersely, folding his arms over his chest and nodding his understanding of all that Hound had said so far.

"Bottom line," Hound answered, "is…well, that it's crazy to try this, but…I think our chances of success are pretty good, considering. Plus," he added, somehow managing to make his voice sound both light and grim at the same time, "even if you say no, Slag's going anyway. Aren't you, buddy?"

"Damn straight," Slag snarled determinedly, glowering at everyone but especially at the small, humorless smile that Hound was leveling at him. "Tired of talking," he added peevishly. He folded his arms defiantly over his chest, unconsciously mirroring Optimus Prime's stance, and leveled a killing glare at the Autobot leader. "_You_ will not stop me."

Optimus Prime, completely unintimidated, glared right back at the notoriously hot-headed Dinobot. Sharp words to spit at Slag entered his mind, but Hound's quiet voice forestalled him.

"We really don't have time to argue about this, Prime," Hound said quietly to Optimus, to distract him if nothing else. "And Slag can't do it alone. He'll try, and you won't be able to stop him, but he _can't_ do it alone."

Optimus Prime suppressed a sigh. The situation was untenable on all sides. The Decepticons had retreated but could return at any time, particularly if they discovered that a highly risky search-and-rescue mission was underway. Swoop and Tracks were trapped on the second-highest mountain in the world, and Tracks, at least, was critically injured. Their only hope for survival at the moment was the four Autobots in front of him, and one of _them_ had never climbed a mountain before. Ratchet had complained bitterly about snow and cold just traveling to the Concordia base camp at 16,000 feet, and now he would be accompanying an expedition that would climb another 12,000 feet or so. But there was no other choice.

Prime almost wished that he could go with the rescue party, as usual feeling an overwhelming sense of personal responsibility toward those who'd trusted him enough to place themselves under his command. But he, like Ratchet, had no climbing experience and so would only be a burden, not an asset, to the expedition. Ratchet would be a burden as well, slowing the others down, but he had a valid reason to go; Tracks's life, at least, would likely depend on Ratchet's presence on the search and rescue team. Optimus Prime knew that he would be of much more use here at the base camp, if the Decepticons decided to return. So, much as he didn't like it, that was where he would be staying.

Prime leveled one last look, half approving and half apologetic, at Hound before announcing his decision.

"You have a go, Hound. Roll out whenever you're ready," he ordered.

Hound nodded silently, grimly accepting the task of leading a time-critical but very perilous mission. Slag made a noise of satisfaction. Trailbreaker sighed wearily. And Ratchet…Ratchet buried his face in his hands, even stained as they were with Air Raid's fluids.

"Primus, why me?" he moaned to no one in particular, other than possibly Primus.

Trailbreaker, closest to the medic, snorted and answered, "Because the more you complain, the more crap Primus dumps on you. And _boy,_ do you do a lotta complaining, Ratchet my friend…"

Ratchet glared at him, and in response Trailbreaker laughed. It wasn't his normal highly-amused belly laugh, but it at least had _some_ humor in it. Ratchet didn't seem to appreciate it, though, so Trailbreaker suddenly thought it prudent to make his escape, heading off to join Hound and Slag to devise their attack plan. He was already formulating a list of supplies they'd need; for the trio's semi-frequent large-scale mountaineering expeditions, Trailbreaker was always the one in charge of provisioning the team, so it was a habit into which he easily fell. He usually had a lot more time to collect equipment and supplies, though. He was hoping that he and Silverbolt could go off, round up the necessary supplies, even if they had to fly back to the States, and then return before night fell so that they could at least leave when it wasn't pitch-black night…

Thus preoccupied, Trailbreaker left Ratchet to finish up Air Raid's repairs and to contemplate his fate.

* * *

_**Meaningless Afternotes:**__ I need to confess what is probably obvious: that I have never climbed a mountain in my life, much less one taller than 8,000 meters. But, I __**did**__ do quite a bit of research about how such climbing is generally done (by humans, obviously) as well as about K2 itself. In fact, something of an obsession with this particular mountain and its climbing history and such was born whilst researching this story, which is not an uncommon occurrence for me. I read journals written by people who climbed the thing, particularly those who tried to climb it (but were unsuccessful) in the winter of 2003. I looked at lots of pictures, studied topo maps, watched videos made by people who climbed/summitted K2, and checked out weather/environmental information. I even read a book about the first American expedition to reach the summit, in 1978. _

_So, what I write about the mountain itself in this story is all accurate. Though not as tall as Everest (albeit by less than 1,000 feet), K2 is __**far**__ more technically difficult to climb due to, among other things, its treacherous, near-vertical slopes, its notoriously horrid weather, and the extremely high danger of avalanche during the normal climbing season, that being the height of summer. To date, only about 250 people have ever been documented as having reached the summit of K2, as opposed to about 2,400 who have summitted Everest. Part of the reason is K2's more remote and, currently, politically-unstable location, sitting on the border of Pakistan and China, but the main reason is that it's frickin' __**hard**__. _

_K2 is also one of the three deadliest of mountains in the world; Everest is not. 1 in 4 people who try to climb K2 dies in the attempt, often while descending after reaching the summit. Of those 250 people who have reached the summit, about 50 of them died on the way back down, most notably in the disaster of August 2008 that claimed eleven lives when an avalanche destroyed fixed rope lines, leaving an expedition stranded in the "death zone," an altitude where there is not enough oxygen to sustain human life. By comparison, 1 in 10 dies while climbing Everest. So, summiting K2 is widely considered the ultimate achievement for a mountaineer, far more impressive on one's "resume" than having summitted Everest. Which is one reason why I chose it as the site of this story. Plus…Well, dangit, it's a __**prettier**__ mountain than Everest, in my opinion; I like its near-perfect pyramidal shape._

_If you, like me, like visual references, here's an awesome pic of the mountain, taken from the very base camp that I've used as a setting for this chapter. Copypasta, remove spaces:_

_image60. webshots. com/ 160/ 7/28 /98 /451472898dIcMVX_fs .jpg_


	2. Chapter 2

When Swoop regained consciousness, he was disoriented in the extreme and literally couldn't recall, for a moment, what had hit him. He easily recalled the battle that had been fought, although he didn't really remember the reason for it. He recalled Tracks, flying far above his recommended maximum altitude, trying to take on, along with Swoop and Air Raid, four Seekers, in the hope of holding them back until the rest of the Aerialbots arrived on the scene. Swoop remembered Tracks going down in literal flames, a victim of Ramjet's usual blunt-force battle strategy. Spiraling out of control, he had headed straight toward the forbidding slopes of the largest mountain in the immediate area.

Swoop had had to make a choice between staying in the fight with Air Raid or following Tracks down and rendering the aid that he would quite obviously need, thus leaving Air Raid to deal with the Seekers alone. The Aerialbot had assured Swoop that he could handle it, knowing as he did that his brothers would arrive in a matter of a minute or two. In fact, he had urged Swoop to go after Tracks so, in the end, that had been what Swoop had chosen to do, breaking off his dogged pursuit of Dirge and looping around to follow Tracks down.

Now, as recollection of what had happened after that came slowly back to him, he was almost wishing that he'd chosen the other course of action.

Thick coils of storm clouds had been moving in as Swoop had approached the summit of the mountain, fierce crosswinds and vicious downdrafts pushing relentlessly at him every which way, but he'd at least been able to pinpoint and commit to memory Tracks's exact location, not far from the mountain's summit. Swoop had almost made it to his location but had been forced to land short of his goal by weather conditions that seemed to worsen by the millisecond. He'd had a very messy landing, plowing into the snow. He hadn't had the time to transform, but he'd fortuitously ended up only a few hundred meters below Tracks's crash site. Once transformed and standing, he could see the flames that still rose fitfully from Tracks's body. They served as a beacon in the whiteout conditions, snow falling and blowing and swirling around him, deep cold brutally biting into his systems. Swoop knew that it was a little before 8AM, local time, but it might as well have been late in the evening; the storm clouds and the snow were blotting out most of the light. Still, despite the environmental conditions, Swoop had a mission, and he needed to keep moving.

He had been laboriously making his way toward Tracks, slowly plowing his way through snow that buckled under his weight, consistently miring him thigh-deep in the stuff, and fighting the 60-degree slope when an almighty, deafening crack had sounded. It was obscenely loud in the thin, high-altitude air, easily loud enough to be heard above the howling gale-force winds. The crack was immediately followed by a rumble that sounded like a close-by freight train and then only increased in volume with every passing millisecond, rumbling in counterpoint with the screaming winds. Mere seconds later, a gigantic wall of snow, ice, and rock had plowed into Swoop, and seconds after that everything had gone black when his body had smacked into something that was larger than he was, very hard, and completely unforgiving.

Now here he was, an indeterminate amount of time later, obviously still buried in snow. There was nothing but impenetrable blackness surrounding him and the sensation of tons of snow and ice pressed against him and weighing down on him. Occasionally, a rumble or a stray, resounding crack passed through the snowpack as it settled, but other than that there was no sound. It was a claustrophobe's nightmare, really; Swoop was quite literally buried alive.

On the plus side, Swoop currently had plenty of energy to spare, and his diagnostics told him that, for the most part, he was functioning perfectly adequately. There was a persistent, lingering ringing in his head from the impact with whatever-it-had-been, but that was of little concern. His left shoulder and the wing nestled behind it had taken some heavy damage from the initial impact and then from being carried along and buried by the avalanche. He wasn't sure if the wing damage would be enough to prevent him from flying, but at the moment that wasn't his highest-priority concern, either. He wasn't going to be flying anywhere any time soon. Everything else, aside from some dents and lacerations, appeared to be operational. He was a Dinobot and, though not nearly as massive and heavily built as his brothers, he was, nonetheless, physically tougher than just about any Autobot. His comm system appeared to be working, but when he tried to call out, there was only whistling static. So either it wasn't working as well as he thought, or there was interference, or he was simply buried too deeply, so…no help there, at least not for now. He set the system to send out a periodic distress call, hoping that, if the system was working at all, someone would hear and answer his transmission or at least pinpoint his location.

The real challenge of the situation, meanwhile, would be moving whilst buried under tons of snow. On-board gyros at least told him which way was up, so he knew which way to dig, assuming that he'd be able to dig at all. At the moment, his feet were facing toward the surface and freedom, so he was basically "standing" on his head. Unfortunately, other sensors told him that he was about seven meters below the new surface of the snow. It would take some time and effort to dig himself out. He had a sense of urgency about it, though, not really for his own sake so much as for Tracks's. The flying Corvette had quite obviously been badly damaged, and if he'd been in the path of the avalanche as well…

A shudder ran through Swoop's body at the thought, but then he determinedly put that scenario out of his mind. He couldn't think about that now. There was nothing he could do for Tracks unless and until he dug himself out of the snow and ice in which he was entombed, so obviously that problem had to be the priority. Experimentally, he tried to move each of his limbs in turn. He found that he was packed in very tightly for the most part, but he also found that he could move the lower part of his left leg just a tiny bit. It was a place to start…

*****

For perhaps the first time in his life, Swoop was thankful for the fact that he was smaller, lither, and more flexible than his brothers. He'd slowly and laboriously created an egg-like cavern in the snow- and icepack that surrounded him by systematically moving limbs, using simple friction to melt the snow, and then eventually wiggling his whole body back and forth to create room to maneuver around him. Turning around in the cavern he'd created, so that his head was pointing upwards, had been neither easy nor painless, thanks to his damaged shoulder, but he'd managed it, progressively contorting himself into intensely uncomfortable positions until he managed to create enough space to shift himself to a slightly less-uncomfortable one. But, once he had himself oriented correctly, and once he had an arm more or less free, he'd been able to use his weapon, set to its lowest power setting, to melt the snowpack above him. He'd caused numerous cave-ins along the way. The snowpack still unstable in the aftermath of the avalanche, and he was aware that he was risking setting off another avalanche, but it was a risk he'd chosen to take. He'd almost completely depleted his weapon's charge in the excavation process, but the end result was that he was free.

Then again, once he'd poked his head above the snow's surface, Swoop felt an instinctive need to dive right back down into his little cavern, where there was shelter from the raging elements.

He'd thought it had been windy when he'd landed on the mountain, but that was as a gentle breeze compared to what was blowing now. As he'd emerged from his crawlspace, he was nearly flattened by the wind that pounded at him. It was still snowing, too, and it was pitch-black; Swoop's chronometer told him that it was only 7PM, local time, but the storm made it seem as if it was much later than that. Nevertheless, it had taken him eleven hours to dig himself out of his situation, most of it spent simply in the effort to turn himself over.

Now, external sensors told him that it was -38 degrees, without factoring in the wind, certainly cold enough to have an effect on his systems if he was subjected to long-term exposure; he would need to keep moving while exposed or else first his joints and then his various systems would begin to lock up and freeze. And he knew that it would only get colder as the night progressed. For a moment, Swoop looked longingly back at his crawlspace. The only thing that kept him from diving back into it was the knowledge that Tracks was out there, injured, and that he'd perhaps been exposed to the brutal elements for every one of the hours that it had taken Swoop to unbury himself. Swoop shivered, and it was a shiver that, for now, had nothing at all to do with the cold.

Running a sensor sweep to pinpoint his current location, Swoop discovered that the avalanche had dragged him more than 1,000 meters down the mountain from his original landing site. He had quite the climb ahead of him now to reach Tracks, and it would be very much a trial and error process until sunrise or until the storm cleared. For now, there was no light. Infrared revealed nothing to him, either, since there were no sources of heat. Swoop could guide himself only by sensors that would not necessarily reveal to him the pitfalls that might await him on any course that he chose to follow until it was too late to do anything other than turn around and try again. He would be climbing blindly, but there was no help for it. Flying was out of the question. He could barely stand in the wind without being knocked down by it, much less accomplish anything resembling controlled flight even if his wing hadn't been damaged.

Swoop's only consolation was that he knew where Tracks was, _if_ he'd been out of the path of the avalanche. If it had caught him, too…Best not to think on that, Swoop decided. Rather, he did the only thing that he could do under the circumstances: Pointing himself at Tracks's last known location, hunching down to offer the smallest amount of wind resistance possible, Swoop began to head up the mountain, hoping for the best

* * *

_Okey-dokes. Set up is done now, so it's time for the "fun" stuff. Yay for disaster stories! ;)  
_

_Then again…We are moving (FINALLY!) and although we're physically living in our new place now, we still have TONS of unpacking to do. Plus, we have no intertubes at the new place yet, so I have to do 'Net stuff on the sly at work. But, I wanted to get this up, anyway, short as it is._


	3. Chapter 3

_Well, since rewriting bits of "What Goes Around" is giving me fits, I channeled the other Swoop story instead, hopefully to clear my head. *laughs* (Watch Nightwind have to retype half the Swoop-referent pronouns in this; That Other Story has __**totally**__ eaten my brain, indeed...)_

_Anyway, yay for getting to use characters that I otherwise __**never**__ use. *snicker*_

_

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_

For hours that seemed like years, Blaster had been fighting a losing battle to keep online the high-gain comm console that he'd cobbled together from parts that Silverbolt had brought to him from Autobot Headquarters. The console was a very fussy creature. It did not like the cold, and the makeshift shelter that the Autobots had thrown together from bits that Silverbolt had also brought from HQ was not in any way, shape, or form insulated. It didn't even keep out the snow that had started to fall in alarming quantities on the base camp not long after Hound's climbing party had gone off to tackle the mountain, Ratchet complaining all the way. Blaster fancied that he could _still_ hear the medic complaining, six hours after they'd departed.

It occurred to Blaster, in a vague sort of way, buried as he was shoulder-deep in the console as he fiddled with its touchy innards, that they could've used Slag's flame-throwing talents down here to keep things a little toastier. But then he supposed that Slag was and would be far more useful where he was. Which was probably halfway up the mountain out of sheer hard-headed stubbornness by now, if Blaster knew the Dinobot. Stubbornness...and worry. Blaster hadn't missed that in the Dinobot, either. He likely didn't care one whit for Tracks and his peril, but Swoop...Well, Swoop was another story, indeed. Blaster smiled to himself as he worked.

And then he swore viciously to himself as the console bleeped in apparent distress. Blaster was certain that something was crashing somewhere, either because it didn't like the much-below-zero ambient evening temperatures or because it didn't like the wind that howled into the "shelter," or because it didn't like the bit of snow that, despite Blaster's best efforts, clung tenaciously to the console's base, no doubt slowly infiltrating and melting against its delicate, fussy circuitry.

Carefully, oh so carefully, Blaster pulled his head out of the console's guts and blinked blearily up at its tiny screen that was lacy with delicate crystals of frozen fog. Something was blinking on the screen, he blearily realized. Swearing again, Blaster rubbed furiously at the screen, frantically frictioning the ice crystals away, deeply scratching the screen in the process...and discovered a tiny, blinking green dot.

The dot blinked erratically at him as the moments passed while Blaster stared dumbly at it for a few long minutes, and then the blinking steadied. Blaster's processors were as foggy and frostbitten as the console's, so it took longer than it should have for him to realize that he was looking at a locator beacon. And as the signal strengthened enough to transmit its ident code and coordinates, he saw that it was Swoop's. Almost reflexively, he opened a channel to talk at the Dinobot but was met with only loud static. Either the signal wasn't getting through for some reason or Swoop's comm was damaged. He grimaced and closed the channel.

And then he kicked the leg that was lying on the ground next to him while uttering a sharp, "Yo."

The leg in question belonged to Optimus Prime, who was curled up on his side on the ground next to Blaster. He was attempting to conserve heat while also trying to take up the least amount of space possible, dozing fitfully. He'd been "a bit" damaged in the battle with the Decepticons that seemed to Blaster as if it had happened eons ago now, in some primeval and much warmer epoch. The "bit" of damage had finally compelled Optimus to rest, forcing him to stop pacing restlessly outside while glaring impotently up at K2's cloud-concealed summit as if the sheer force of his ire could solve all of their problems. Blaster had practically had to drag him inside and force-feed him some of the energon that Silverbolt had brought from HQ. Once Prime was sitting down and the energon was flowing through his damaged systems, his self-repair systems had further insisted that he sink down into his current state of deep and mostly-oblivious doze so that they could do their job.

Which was fine with Blaster because the manic vibes shooting in massive quantities from his leader had been driving his mellow self truly insane. And he really didn't need that, what with the touchy-but-crucial console _already_ driving him insane.

But before he'd crashed, Optimus had made Blaster swear that he would rouse him if he heard anything, so much as a _peep_, from either Swoop or Tracks, or if the climbing party reported any catastrophe. So, much as Blaster didn't want to deal with The Vibe again, he also knew that if he didn't wake Prime up there'd be hell to pay. Hence, the none-too-gentle kick. In response, Prime blearily raised his head from its awkward position on the ground, raised a hand to rub at the crick in the side of his neck that had resulted from his head's position against the ground, and then he blinked muzzily at Blaster, not really fully awake yet. Under other circumstances, Blaster might have termed "cute" the deeply befuddled expression on the Autobot leader's face. As it was, he merely pointed a frigid finger at the steadily blinking dot and uttered the word, "Swoop." His voice stuttered slightly with cold.

Instantly, Optimus was fully awake, wincing only slightly as he shifted his body up onto his knees, fighting off a wave of dizziness as he did so. He huddled behind and leaned over Blaster's shoulder like a particularly inquisitive vulture. Blaster tried not to let it bother him. In fact, he found that he rather appreciated the warm closeness of another body.

"Telemetry?" Optimus asked, his voice rough from his fitful slumber. "Is he all right?"

"Nah, it's just the locator," Blaster answered. "Signal's not strong enough for anything else. I tried talking to him, but...no go."

"Can you raise Hound?" Optimus asked.

Blaster manipulated the console with half-frozen hands, opening up the tracker's channel with a, "Yo, Hound?"...and was greeted with piercing screams. And it wasn't the wind. And it wasn't Hound, either.

"Blaster," Hound's strained voice uttered, "can you...talk to 'Breaker instead? Got...Ugh!...an acrophobic medic...NGAH!...having a freak-out...ARGH!...on my hands here. Slag, just _sit_ on him, for Primus's sake!"

Suppressing a snicker, Blaster closed that channel and opened Trailbreaker's. He could still hear the screaming, but it wasn't nearly so immediate.

"Hey, 'Breaker, how's it hangin'?" Blaster said cheerily.

"'Hanging' is the word, m'man," Trailbreaker replied with a grunt. "This ledge is _teeny_ and the drop-off is...whoa. Almost enough to make _me_ acrophobic. Ratchet is a seriously unhappy camper."

"No kidding," Blaster answered, guffawing. "Tell him we've got Swoop's locator. Maybe that'll shut him up before he sets off an avalanche."

"Yeah," Trailbreaker answered ominously, "'cuz we just don't have enough of _those_ up here..." Then he relayed Blaster's news to Ratchet...and silence suddenly descended. And then Ratchet's channel clicked on.

"Where is he?" he asked demandingly and without preamble, his voice frayed with panic and the accompanying obvious effort to put it aside. "Is he all right? Slag, will you get the hell off me?"

"Dunno, Ratch," Blaster reported succinctly, smiling at the medic's obvious annoyance with the Dinobot. "We've only got his locator. Can't get through on the comm. But he's moving, so I think that's a good sign."

"Where is he?" Hound again asked, cutting in, speaking over Ratchet's comm.

"Not too far from you, actually," Blaster answered. "Maybe a kilometer or so higher. But he's over on the China-side face."

"Oh, _hell_," Hound swore. His voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the wind, but the tone of his voice was ominous. Trailbreaker's loud utterance of "Shit!" in the background was equally ominous.

"What?" Optimus cut in, hearing the worried despair in Hound's voice. The cursing alone was enough to set off warning bells in his head; neither Trailbreaker nor Hound was the type to do that without reason. "What's wrong?"

"The China-side face up there," Hound answered after a long, quiet, and probably thoughtful moment, "is vertical. Pretty much not climbable at all. At least, no one's ever done it. And...uh...there are signs of a huge avalanche that slid that way. Bet you dollars to doughnuts Swoop was caught in it."

"Oh, hell," Optimus said, echoing Hound's sentiment.

"But at least he got out!" Trailbreaker announced optimistically.

"Stubborn brat," Ratchet grunted, but it was an affectionate grunt.

"Yeah," Hound's voice said. "But...he'll have a tough time over there."

There was quiet for a moment, but for the howling of the wind over the comm. The signal crackled faintly with static here and there. Then:

"Which way is Swoop moving?" Ratchet suddenly wanted to know.

Blaster frowned, glanced at the screen showing Swoop's location, and answered, "He's vectoring away from you, actually. Heading up and toward the Pakistan side, but...basically heading in the opposite direction from the direction you guys are headed."

"He knows where Tracks is," the medic announced then, with utter, rock-solid certainty. "And we're going the wrong way."

"How do you know that?" Hound's voice asked.

"Because he's a _medic_," Ratchet hissed insistently and impatiently. "He would have noted his patient's location. So let's get off this damned ledge and follow him. Because _he_ knows where he's going. Unlike _you_," he added accusingly at, presumably, Hound. Then he continued to growl under his breath about ledges, crevasses, drop-offs, and not-so-subtle attempts to kill him.

There was quiet again and then Hound's voice said, "All right. We're gonna see if we can intercept Swoop. It'll be tough with the slide between us, and we're quickly losing the light up here...but my gut says that Ratchet's right. Blaster, can you transmit Swoop's location and bearing?"

"Done," Blaster reported a second later.

"Got it," Hound confirmed.

"We'll keep in contact," Optimus said then. "And we'll let you know if he changes course. And for Primus's sake be careful up there."

"Gotcha," Hound's voice answered. "And we will. 'Breaker, let's back out of here. Carefully. Slag, you wanna belay?"

And then the channel closed as the rescue party set about mobilizing themselves. Blaster sat back with a long sigh, inadvertently leaned against Optimus...and then, appreciating the much larger Autobot's radiant warmth, decided that he wasn't going to jerk away. Neither, noticeably, did Optimus. In fact, he shifted closer to Blaster and then cast a glance over at Silverbolt and Air Raid in the corner of the makeshift shelter. The former was awake and shivering violently every now and then. He had adamantly refused to leave the area, knowing he'd be needed to transport casualties to Autobot HQ, assuming that they'd be rescued at all. And since he had stayed, Air Raid, currently unable to fly but recovering nicely, had stayed, too. He slept cuddled into Silverbolt's side. And since Silverbolt and Air Raid were staying, Skydive, Slingshot, and Fireflight were still hanging around, too. They were outside somewhere, keeping watch. Probably huddled, too.

Silverbolt met Optimus Prime's gaze and then, with a jerk of his head, Prime beckoned the two Aerialbots over to join the warmth-sharing snuggling. Silverbolt, not having to be told twice, gladly gathered his brother up into his arms and then moved to plop him down next to Blaster. Air Raid, not caring from whom he got his warmth, whined a bit but then snuggled happily enough into the comm officer, and Silverbolt snuggled into Optimus with a long, relieved sigh.

"Rest," the Autobot leader commanded his three snuggled-in subordinates. "I'll take the first watch."

No one protested; they merely settled against each other with sighs that conveyed varying levels of appreciation. And Optimus Prime settled in to watch the steadily- and hypnotically-blinking green dot.


	4. Chapter 4

_Wow. So much response to the last li'l chapter. It warms my heart. Thank you all so very much, to those who reviewed/faved/watched or just read the darn thing! *hugs everyone* Some review replies are below. They're…uh…longer than the story bit, I'm afraid. Watch Nightwind blab… :p  
_

_Anyway, this…is short. I had thought to include two other short bits with it to make a really big chapter…but then I thought maybe it'd be best not to make people wait while I fuss with them and fill in a few holes, since I already let this one sit too long while the crack ate my brain. Besides, I bet you're all wondering what Tracks is up to, eh? :) No? Well, that's good because, really, he's not up to much…_

_Oh, and for those of you reading/enjoying this story who might have missed the link in the reviews, go here and look at this: http:// greenapplefreak. deviantart. com/ art/ A-Cross-to-Bear-150936682 (Copy, paste, remove spaces.) And then give her lots of love. I command it._

_Anyway, onward._

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It wasn't the cold that roused Tracks, and it wasn't pain, either. Rather, it was a disturbing _lack_ of pain that triggered something in him, some small flare of self-awareness in his processors or in his spark or in _something_, enough so to nudge him toward a semblance of consciousness. Once he achieved that, Tracks realized that there was, in fact, a disturbing lack of sensation of _any_ kind. And then the slow, dull realization hit him that he couldn't move, except for, oddly enough, his left arm. Out of reflexive habit, Tracks accessed his diagnostics. There was no response. Nothing. Not even the faintest ping. Not even any indication that there was any kind of connection whatsoever between his mind and his body. There was similarly no response from pretty much any system that Tracks tried to access, out of both habit and a nagging, vague suspicion that this, all of this, should be bothering him in some way.

Try as he might, Tracks couldn't remember where he was or how he'd gotten to wherever he was. Last he remembered, he was cruising downtown New York City on a deliciously sweltering August night, watching the myriad goings-on, illicit and otherwise. And then…nothing. Big black hole. Entire chunks of memory were quite obviously either inaccessible or simply completely gone. His processors were distinctly fuzzy, too; whole subroutines seemed curiously inaccessible as well.

So, Tracks knew only that he was greatly damaged. Or at least he assumed that he was; it was pitch black, so he couldn't actually _see_ any damage, and since his diagnostics were apparently offline… Well, the fact that he was almost completely numb indicated to Tracks that the rest of his body was so damaged that he couldn't access it. And either his optics were shot along with everything else, or he really _was_ in a pitch-black environment.

The environment certainly wasn't silent, however. Fierce winds howled all around him. In fleeting, intermittent seconds, when he could concentrate hard enough, Tracks could feel that they were strong enough to manage to move him slightly, a few inches at a time, even if he couldn't exactly feel his body at the moment. So he was apparently in some open, exposed area, vulnerable to all of the apparently brutal elements. He could feel the air on his face and on his arm. It was frigid, so cold that it strangely didn't feel cold at all. When he breathed in some of it, it seemed to burn his intakes, and he coughed weakly, reflexively, at the sensation. Fluids that he couldn't see and therefore couldn't identify came up with the cough, dribbling from his mouth onto whatever he was lying on. It was not a good sign at all…

It did, however, indicate to Tracks that he was lying on his side since he could feel that the expelled fluids dribbled from only one corner of his mouth. This knowledge was comforting, in a simple and strange sort of way. The pitch-blackness and the almost-full-body numbness were disorienting in the extreme, made it excessively difficult for Tracks to ascertain something as simple as which direction was up.

Sheets made up of billions of tiny specks of biting cold slammed into his face. Snow, then. Very strongly wind-driven snow that struck him like millions of tiny knives. Marvelous. Experimentally, Tracks bent his one working body part. It was awkward, since he was, he dimly realized, lying on that side of his body, but he managed to bend his arm at the elbow. A thick coating of what was apparently ice that had been encasing the appendage broke apart with the movement, with a sound not unlike that of shattering glass that was instantly swallowed by the insistent screaming roar of the wind. The resulting shards of ice slid off of his arm. Whatever sound they might have made when they impacted with whatever it was that he was lying on was similarly drowned out by the wind. So:

He was outside.

It was frigidly cold, probably the deepest cold that Tracks had ever experienced. In that sense, he was actually somewhat glad that he couldn't feel his body.

Wind howled around him relentlessly and unceasingly. The howling was high-pitched, putting Tracks in mind of a horde of enraged, rampaging ghosts.

There were great amounts of frozen precipitation falling.

It was apparently the dead of night, without even ambient light sources. No stars. No moon. Certainly no artificial lights. Tracks brilliantly deduced that, wherever he was, he was far, _far_ away from any kind of civilization.

Finally, he was so damaged that he couldn't move, couldn't even feel that he possessed a body, for the most part.

All in all, it was definitely not Tracks's best day ever.

There was nothing that he could do about it, though. He could only lie there in the frigid blackness and pray to whatever benevolent deity that might deign to listen to him that _someone_, _somewhere_ knew where he was. And, he supposed, he also needed to pray that he hadn't alienated everyone to such an extent that they couldn't be bothered to come and help him.

He had that effect on people sometimes. This, Tracks knew all too well.

Tracks also knew that he had a singular talent for single-handedly getting himself into heaps of trouble. He readily acknowledged this, too. But he reflected that, this time, he just might have managed to outdo himself.

This was indeed the thought that carried Tracks back into what he thought was a mere doze but that was actually deep unconsciousness as his main processors began the process of shutting themselves down in the wake of extreme environmental conditions, severe structural damage, dwindling energy reserves, and a steady draining of his vital fluids…

* * *

_*begins to hum Madonna's "Frozen* *snicker*_

_**Ayngel:**__ I know! I keep expecting Screamer to swoop in (No pun intended) to the rescue. ;) So I guess my universe is changed, too! *laughs* It makes me really glad that I deliberately left Starscream out of this story even just as a name-mention, just as I deliberately left out all the other characters (other than Swoop, of course. And Ratchet.) that I write about a lot. They're all comfy back at their respective bases, pointing and laughing at the unfortunate underused ones. Of course, if I continue to go back and forth between these two particular stories, I'm likely to drive myself crazy trying to keep the Swoops separate in my poor beleaguered brain. *snicker*._

_But yeah, this story is all about atmosphere, and it's quite the challenge, really. But it's a good exercise in visualization._

_**Jalaperilo:**__ Yeah, Swoop-as-medic just kind of took off, didn't it? *laughs* Honestly, back when I wrote "Vigil" like 15 freakin' years ago now. I just figured that it would make sense for the loner Dinobots to have their own in-group field medic, and Swoop seemed like the best choice, since he's not front-line ground combat and since he seems more empathetic than the others. At the time, I had no intentions whatsoever of expanding the concept, and I **truly **did not expect the concept to take off like that. Some people seem to think it's canon or something now. *laughs* And that's just way cool; I love it when people feed off of and expand my ideas._

_And yeah, I don't think I'm going anywhere, alas. I'll probably still be obsessed when I'm 70. I've tried to leave the fandom twice now, and it didn't work either time. *sigh*_

_**Refracted Imagination:**__ Acrophobic Ratchet is just way too much fun. So yeah, more of that will appear, most definitely. This story has an underlying (and unintentional, really) theme of facing fears. Ratchet is/will be the most obvious example, but Prime and Swoop get some of it, too. So, it's all good. And yes, snuggly Autobots are fun. Optimus Prime is so very (and cutely!) tactile. Seriously, he is. He's constantly hugging and touching people. Watch the original 'toon, and you'll see it all over the place. He's most definitely a cuddler…_

_**Peacewish:**__ Wow, two reviews. Thank you! :) Yeah, this story is sort of inspired by the disaster movies that they used to make in the mid-70s, where you follow the individual storylines as each person/group deals with the overriding catastrophe at hand. (Nightwind watched _The Towering Inferno_ lately. Can you tell? :) ) So, you get shifting POVs and a few different plot lines, yepper-do. _

_I have not read _Three Cups of Tea_, but it's on my reading list; as I understand it, the author got involved in the area as a result of a failed attempt to climb K2 or one of the mountains in that area, yes?_

_**Blume:**__ You already know that I LOVE the art. Thank you, thank you, thank you, again! I love you forever. :)  
_

_Yeah, I like my Optimus. He comes across as a bit too stuffy in the 'toon (It's a kids' show, after all; the good guy leader has to be a Sterling Hero Who Can Do No Wrong And Never Gets Pissy), but my OP is looser. And occasionally pissy. And more fun. But not TOO fun and loose because he is, after all, a leader and has to maintain that aura of "I'm in control" as well as a certain distance from everyone. It makes him lonely, I think, especially given his natural touchy-feely nature. But I like to crack him open and pick at him every once in a while. This story is an opportunity to do a bit of that. He even gets to snuggle with people, bless his heart. *laughs*_

_And yes, poor Ratchet has the most horrible job EVAR! On so many different levels. It makes him bitchy, which is fun. Especially when bouncing him off laid-back, never ruffled, never bitchy Trailbreaker, like I get to do in this story. *laughs*_

_**Jason: **__You just have to love acrophobic Ratchet. No, seriously. I __**insist**__ that you love him! *laughs* And the snuggling...Well, Optimus apparently needed his touchy-feely quota filled. Any port in the storm for him, I guess. :)_

_**Negare:**__ Thank you! :) Working on this story is a nice break from mush/drama/crack. I'm really surprised no one's done much in the way of disaster stories with TFs, at least not so far as I've seen. They really are ripe for them, whichever side you choose to torment. (Decepticons…underwater headquarters…BIG disaster just __**waiting**__ to happen there… *snicker*)_

_**libertykid:**__ I'm happy I updated, too, because writing this li'l bit seems to have gotten the juices flowing again. They'd been kind of...blocked, I guess. Of course, the weather helps, too. Crappy weather tends to make me more creative. Because there isn't much else to do when you don't want to go out on crappy, snowy roads. Yay for living at 8,000 feet up in Colorado, where we will have 4 feet of new snow by sometime tonight! Spiffy!_

_**Koyako:**__ Glad you're enjoying. And glad the descriptions are succeeding so far. It is most definitely an exercise in imaginative visualization, that's for sure. :) And…Well, I __**probably**__ can't let Tracks die, 'cuz, y'know, I adore him and all… But we'll just have to see! *snicker* ;)  
_


	5. Chapter 5

_So, with this one, you get two little bits in one because they are too small for chapters of their own. Consider this the eye of the storm before the drama starts happening. :)_

_As always, thanks to all of you who've read/watched/faved/reviewed. It seems like poor Tracks isn't too popular here. Aw! Well, I love him so I guess that will have to do for him. ;) Anyway…have some cookies, all ye readers! And a bit of fic, too…_

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Ratchet wasn't certain which was worse: Seeing that he was up way too high or knowing that he was up way too high and _not_ being able to see that he was up way too high, even if he shined his shoulder-mounted light in the direction of the drop-off that he knew was looming somewhere off to his left.

He knew, intellectually, that he was sufficiently far from the drop-off. He knew, intellectually, that Hound and Slag had scouted ahead while they'd still had some light and had accurately mapped the steeply-inclined ridge they were currently traversing as it spiraled dizzyingly above the distressingly wide path of the recent avalanche. They'd even blazed a quick initial trail, utilizing Slag's expert flame-throwing abilities, something they'd consider extreme cheating if they were doing this for recreation.

Ratchet shuddered at the very notion; why _anyone _would do this for recreation was multiple parsecs beyond his comprehension. But he knew that Hound and Slag knew what they were doing, and that they had laid down ropes to guide all of them in the darkness, to keep them all safely away from the drop-off as Hound and Trailbreaker, now up in the lead, plowed and hacked through the snow and ice that had accumulated in just the few of hours that had passed since the initial survey. The globs of snow that they knocked aside skipped down the 70-degree incline that they were climbing, occasionally whacking Ratchet in the head and making him sigh exasperatedly. It was, he was convinced, the icing on the cake.

They had all collectively decided to keep moving through the night. They had a lot of ground to cover and time was limited in a disturbingly unknown sort of way. They were heading slowly and laboriously, every step hard-won, towards Swoop's now-stationary – So Silverbolt, at base camp, had informed them – location. He'd apparently decided to hunker down for the night. Either that…or he was stuck, in which case they had even less reason to bivouac for the night. They were relying on Ratchet's firm assertion that Swoop knew where Tracks was, so they were obliged to find him or at the very least to follow him. And in either case, they needed to keep moving, because Swoop was still three-quarters of a kilometer higher up than they were. It seemed a ridiculously short distance, a distance that would take them mere seconds to travel on a wide-open highway, but in these conditions, traversing a single kilometer took an hour of hard and heavy work.

And so here they were, climbing a near-vertical wall of mostly-ice in the middle of the night on one of the tallest mountains on the planet. Had someone a week ago told Ratchet that he'd be doing this, he would have had them carted off to the nearest loony bin. And yet, here he was.

Ratchet knew with a fair degree of confidence that he was not going to fall. He also knew that he was secured by a series of complexly-knotted ropes – and a few chains, just for good measure – to Slag below him, who, even if Ratchet did manage to fall somehow, wouldn't be very likely to budge as a result, being much larger and heavier than Ratchet was, _and_ being further stabilized by the fact that he was now staying in his much-sturdier, quadrupedal, lower-to-the-ground dinosaur form. Ratchet knew all of this and more, all of it information that should have helped keep him calm and reassured.

Still, Ratchet _felt_ like he was going to fall. Phobias were by definition irrational fears, and the irrational whispering in his processors seemed to be gaining in volume as he gained in altitude. They kept insisting that falling was nothing less than an inevitability. And now that utter darkness had descended upon them, Ratchet couldn't help feeling that he had somehow managed to stray completely off-course – even though he _knew_ that he hadn't – and that he was now millimeters away from the precipice that he couldn't see, that there was nothing between him and falling for kilometers in pitch-blackness to his doom. He shuddered deeply at the thought.

But then he shook himself as he felt rising panic begin to eat at him again, sternly telling himself not to go there. It was embarrassing enough that he'd succumbed to panic earlier and, worse, that _everyone_ had seen or at least heard him panicking. He would never, he knew, live it down. And he insisted to himself that he wasn't going to add more fuel to the story-telling fire, even if he had to drug himself until he was comatose and Slag had to drag him the rest of the way up the mountain. He just wasn't going to go there.

No. Way.

Instead, he deliberately focused his attention up and ahead of him, to Trailbreaker, who he knew was a dozen meters in front of him even if all he could see of him was the bobbing light that he was carrying. Hound was a few dozen meters ahead of Trailbreaker, in the lead. They were forging slowly ahead, leading the way, armed with bright halogen lights mounted on their shoulders that at least allowed them to see a few meters in front of themselves before the light was completely swallowed by driving snow that only drove harder and faster as they slowly ascended into the cold embrace of the storm that was more severely buffeting the higher elevations.

Exertion was at least keeping the effects of the extreme cold at bay. The only problem was that dissipated internal heat caused internal and external condensation, which almost immediately froze if one stilled for a even a few seconds. Chunks of ice grinding in joints and gears was not necessarily comfortable and did not make for optimum efficiency. But it was manageable, certainly so if Ratchet kept his focus on the overriding purpose of this entire ordeal. So, he fixed his sights on the two Autobots in front of him, clenched his jaw, and continued to plow ahead, higher and higher inch by inch, doing his best to leave acrophobic panic and raging worry for both Tracks and Swoop behind him.

* * * *

Swoop had gone rock-climbing with Slag before. Exactly once. In Yosemite. In May of the previous year. He hadn't found the experience very enjoyable. As a flier, the danger of climbing, at least in that far less extreme situation, had been completely nullified and, therefore, the thrill was similarly nullified. In truth, Swoop had gotten bored. Quickly.

And so, Swoop had cheated, using flight to easily skip between narrow ledges and outcroppings in the cliff face that Slag had had to labor mightily to reach. Swoop had almost literally bounced up the cliff face. Mostly, he had done this because he'd known that it would piss off Slag and therefore give him some entertainment. He clearly recalled perching on the lip of the cliff, leaning precariously over it and staring down in vast amusement at Slag. He'd lobbed mostly-good-natured critique and taunts down at him. Slag had scowled up at him while he'd clung to the rocks, slinging not-very-good-natured imprecations right back up at Swoop. Which, of course, had only served to increase Swoop's level of overall amusement.

This situation…was different. Very different. His head craned far backwards, Swoop stared, half in dismay and half in determined challenge, up at the huge and almost sheer face of snow-and-ice-encrusted rock in front of him. California in early May had been pleasant. Sunshine had agreeably warmed him while he'd sat up on lip of the bluff, watching Slag climb. The breeze had been light and cool, just cool enough to soothe Slag in his exertions.

But here, the storm winds still howled, and it was truly frigid. Swoop's forced inactivity of the night before had had its deleterious effects, too, even though he'd burrowed as deeply as he could manage into the snow for protection from the wind and for meager insulation against the dry and deeply biting cold. He'd drifted off into a doze and had awoken a few hours later to frozen relays and heavy ice accumulation in pretty much all of his joints, which had taken him a while to remove. And now, there were reports coming in from his diagnostics here and there, telling him tales of internal damage as frozen condensation that had accumulated in his internals started to melt once he'd started moving again, frying a number of unprotected and uninsulated circuit pathways. The latter most certainly made his thinking somewhat fuzzy; the effect was not that much different, he reflected, than what a human was supposed to experience in the early stages of hypothermia. It was an effort to focus and then to maintain his focus, but Swoop was managing. For now, at least.

Swoop had, he realized, few options open to him. During the previous night, once he'd reached the rock face currently looming over him, he had determined that there was no way around it. To one side, there was a long and near-vertical drop-off. To the other side, there was another drop-off, but between that drop-off and Swoop there was a crevasse. He'd discovered the crevasse the previous night by the simple expedient of falling into it. He hadn't fallen too far; he'd transformed, painfully, directly reversed course, and had then flown blindly back out of it, his damaged wing screaming in protest the entire time. Once he'd crested the lip of the crevasse, emerging out into the raging elements from which the crevasse had shielded him, the hurricane-force winds had latched onto him with a death grip and had threatened to carry him off to who-knew-where. It had been difficult, not to mention energy-draining, to bring himself back safely down to the mountainside without colliding in an out-of-control fashion with the mountain.

So now, for Swoop, it was either figure out a way up and around the forbidding rock face in front of him, or backtrack and attempt to find another way around. If he chose the latter option, he'd be wasting all of his harrowing efforts of the previous night, hours upon hours spent plowing through waist-deep loose snow, slipping and sliding up a very steep and treacherously slick incline, not to mention the whole crevasse affair. Swoop stubbornly did not want to do that; he was very aware of time ticking inexorably by. So that left…

He eyed the rock face again with renewed interest and determination, eyes narrowed against the pallid light that managed to pierce the otherwise thick layer of storm clouds that roiled above and around him. The wind was still raging but for the moment, the snow had stopped, and he had something of a better view than he might have had the day before. So he could see that some fifty meters above his head there was a tiny outcropping of ice, _maybe_ wide enough for him to stand on if he otherwise flattened himself against the rock face, although he had no idea if it would actually support his weight. Squinting, he saw another similar outcropping somewhat higher up. The wall of rock was, apparently, not quite as sheer as he'd first thought, and Swoop found his thoughts suddenly flashing back to Yosemite. He recalled himself laughing at Slag as he'd skipped easily from ledge to ledge up the face of the cliff they'd climbed…

But surely he couldn't just skip up _this_ cliff face in short hops of flight…could he? He thought about it. His position was actually somewhat sheltered from the wind at the moment. It wasn't sheltered enough that he could truly fly to his destination, but at least for the moment it mostly seemed to be slamming into the other side of the mountain. He wasn't sure that the same would be true higher up, but he figured that he'd cross that bridge if and when he came to it. He also had light now, thin and pale though it was, to see his way. Another advantage, another positive. The unknown variable was his damaged wing. It had worked marginally, albeit _very_ painfully, the previous night on a short, straight-shot hop of flight, but to accomplish the kind of precisely-controlled flight that would be needed to land safely on those tiny outcroppings that loomed far above him…? That was an entirely different thing.

In the end, Swoop decided that the only way to know whether or not his sudden and perhaps crazy plan would work was to try it. He realized that he had little to lose and perhaps everything to gain.


End file.
